folks without pow er in prince georges county. it's above freezing. let's start with temperatures. in fact, this is as warm as it's been in many spots. 44 downtown. 45 in manassas already. 41 in leesburg. still stuck in the 30s as you head up 270. 39 in gaithersburg and looking at 39 in frederick. still, that's well above freezing. look at all the rain. look at the pockets of heavy rain. this is yellow, heavy rain west of tyson's as you go out 270. this will cross 270 in the next 45 minutes. flood watch is canceled. we are not done with heavy rain and steady rain. we'll come back and talk about when the rain leaves us alone and what is behind this rain for tomorrow. you might be surprised. >> top, thanks. now let's get you up to speed on what is happening with sequestration. here's why this matters. if congress doesn't a strike a deal, head start programs in schools could be cut.

military deployments to afghanistan could be extended. and our local economy could take a beating. federal workers may be furloughed and now, d.c.'s housing authority says it may not be able to help families on the waiting list for their turn to find affordable housing downtown. as of now, there are no signs that lawmakers will find a compromise that would head off the cuts or delay them. president obama headed off to a shipyard today using the backdrop to point out that civilians who work with the military could face layoffs if the sequester happens. >> so these cuts are wrong. they aren't smart, they aren't fair. they are a self-inflicted wound that doesn't have to happen. >> president has been traveling all over the country and today, going down to new port news in order to use our military men and women as a prop in another campaign rally to support his tax hikes.

>> now the house speaker, john boehner, went on to say it's up to the democratic controlled senate to act first on any deal to avoid sequestration. there is much more on the sequester waiting for you, include ago petition asking if congress aught to face the penalty if federal workers are facing furloughs. now, let us move on to our other big issue tonight. gun control. there is a town out there where every household is required by law to own a gun. and the ammunition to use it. it is located 25 miles outside of atlanta in georgia and andrea mccarren takes us there. >> we don't have shootouts. it's not a wild west. >> sunrise over kennesaw, georgia, reveals a sleepy town of 30,000 and a landscape dotted with flags. american and confederate. >> i can kill somebody with this. i can really do some damage and hurt somebody. >> karen sharyl is a lifelong kennesaw resident. >> if i hear somebody trying

to break in, this will get loaded. if they want to come in my house, they'll get shot. >> she's a big supporter of the town's law. it requires every household to own a gun. >> why are you going to break into someone's house if they have guns in there and they could kill you? >> i was born with them and raised with them. it's like any other. >> meyers is a feisty 82-year- old shop owner with a pair of pistols. he, too, is a staunch defender of the right to own firearms. >> i have the right to eat oatmeal cookies if you don't want to. if you don't like chocolate, don't eat it. don't tell me i can't. >> our random survey of kennesaw residents found unanimous support for the law. >> i think everybody should be allowed to have a gun if they want to. as long as they aren't crazy or anything. >> kennesaw's 1982 gunman date was a direct response to a gun ban enacted a year earlier in

morton grove, illinois. that was later deemed unconstitutional. but kennesaw's law is still on the books. >> it was not meant to be an enforceable law. the police department never searched homes to make sure you had a gun. it was meant as a political statement to support citizen's second amendment rights to own firearms. >> after the law went into effect in 1982, city leaders say they witnessed a 29% drop in crime. in the 30 years since, the crime rate has remained low. including just four gun related homicides. >> our crime rate is generally less than half the national average. >> over the years, kennesaw has grown. and today, amist the sprawling subdivisions and strip malls, gun control is still a sensitive issue. >> there's a lot of people that are passionate about their right to own a firearm. any kind of a firearm. >> including an assault weapon. >> yes. >> as the sunsets on kennesaw, its residents are keeping an

eye on the second amendment and how washington interprets it. >> i think if they change it, they are killing the constitution. >> no men anymore, there's no men. we have no leaders, no men. we are a wishy washy nation now. nobody is afraid of us anymore. >> andrea mccarren, wusa9. >> folks in kennesaw who do not buy a gun are not punished. the law allows several exceptions. folks with mental illness, and for those who just can't afford to buy a gun. we would like you to join our conversation. it is one of our hottest topics. now one religious leader who duds does not want an exception is kenneth blacheford. he spoke at the national press club last week and he said god expects people to protect their loved ones using deadly force if necessary. pastor is right here with us in the studio. we are glad to have you, thanks for coming in. >> thanks for the ini have

tigs. >> invitation. >> when i first started in 1992, i wanted to be the resource for the community, to help people get firearm safety and education. i found out that my community didn't really know about gun rights, about gun anything and i had to start from scratch. i had to learn a lot about history. when i got into the history, i started talking to a lot of people from all over the place. next thing i know, i was the one that crossed all the lines. there were about 20 big gun groups in the world. they might have talked to each other, but they talked to me. i was able to go to places where guys, like the folks from z.d. top. they have long beards and they love me. it's just the weirdest thing in the world. >> okay, wait a second, you're a pastor. wait a minute, aren't you supposed to be turning the other cheek? how does that go with being a firearms proponent? >> you also have to go where you can go. and god has made me special, being a veteran, a former law

enforcement officer, i've been in harm's way before. i can talk the talk. i've been with bikers and the hunters and shooters. this group of people, it's a big community, also needs a pastor. i talk to them a lot. >> now, your church is in northeast washington, d.c., which has the toughest gun laws urned. how do you balance that? >> that one is funny. every time i make an appearance like this, they all cover their heads because it's the biggest controversy in our church alone. i'm probably the only republican in the church. i'm probably the only gun owner in the church. i live in maryland. church is in d.c. >> you own guns at your house? you don't bring them into the city? >> there's a conflict where the elder say, don't talk about guns. it's a love, hate thing. >> what's your message to a country that 61% according to a new nbc news wall street journal poll favors stricter gun laws, especially in light of what's been happening lately? >> unfortunately, we are doing

a knee jerk reaction to events. we have always had violence. that's always been trouble. and what we have done now is give power to politicians. we said help us fix this. make it go away. and you can't legislate human behavior. you can't fix crazy. >> so is it your take that background checks, any effort to make it tougher to get a gun wouldn't help? >> because we already have it. if you right now in maryland, you fill out about 11 by 17 sheets of paper like you are buying a mortgage. they know more about you than your neighbors. the gun people that i hang around with are more trustworthy than some of the cousins that i got. >> what's your plan for dealing with the situation? >> my plan right now is to take care of the people who are up in arms. they are hurting. they are afraid of the country and just, be a pastor, to actually spread the word that these are not crazy people. these are neighbors that you trusted for twenty years.

they also hunt and shoot recreationally. >> maybe you can cross some of those lines that keep people from talking to each other. thank you so much for talking with us about it today. >> thanks for having me here. coming up, we have the story pounding pavement for a job, but this is no ordinary story. still ahead, ten miles and a stranger combine to bring this young man new beginning. and up next, a landmark case. we'll tell you about an issue that one justice says could be the most important in recent

sammy says this is the most important criminal procedure case to come before the high court in decades. it stems from a rape in the state of maryland. the court will rule on when and where it is appropriate for police to swab your cheek and thereby take possession of your profile. the story from bruce leshan. >> this is about the truth and

dna is truth. and it is truth that makes sure that we are convicting the guilty. >> for the mother of a murder victim, there is little question. >> katie gave up the most basive of her constitutional rights. her right to live. >> swabbing dna from people who are arrested help solve cold cases. >> we would never identify katie's killer without dna. >> but in the case of alonzo king, when police swabbed his cheek after his arrest on an assault charge, they should have sought a warrant. king's dna matched the dna found at a rape scene and he was then convicted of that crime. maryland attorney general, doug michigan ganson. >> but several justices asked if police can go on a fishing expedition through your dna before you are even convicted of a crime, where does it end? justice asked if the state

should be allowed to take the dna of every person who comes in for a driver's license. >> warrantless, suspicionless searches are unconstitutional. >> in maryland, you actually have to be arrested for a serious offense for police to swab your cheek. federal rules and the rules in many other states are more sweeping, speed on the gw parkway, police could arrest you and swab your cheek and dive deep into your dna profile. >> we believe that fingerprinting is really fund mentally different because of the profound information contained in an individual's dna. >> it is another issue that pits sophisticated technology against our personal privacy. and the supreme court is still wrestling with the right balance. bruce leshan, wusa9. >> and expect the ruling on this one in june. it is a cold, rainy night out there tonight. but topper says we are still heading from winter to spring.

the forecast comes your way up next. also, going the distance. one young man's journey to a new job and how a chance encounter brought him a new beginn

it's not a nice fit for men nor beast. >> it's really not. we didn't get the snow the midwest got, but we got rain, we got high winds. restrictions on the bay. we have power outages in prince

georges county. so not great. good news is, it will be improving in the next six hours. let's start with a live look outside. it's our live michael and son weather cam. 44 downtown. dew point is in the 40s, so it's not going to go down at all. it will remain steady or go up. winds have slacked a little bit, but they are gusting to 28, 29 miles per hour. they will eventually become southwesterly later tonight. this is ice. a good little bit of ice. a quarter inch to a third of an inch. this was sent from grant county. mary sent this to us and she had to scrape this off her car. this was on the west side of the divide and that shows you how different the weather is, about 160 miles from the nation's capital. all right, the big picture, lots of snow in chicago. the rain has gone to snow in detroit. the good news is, snow is letting up and lifting northward out of missouri where they got hammered once again in kansas city. this is our rain. this is another storm system.

a second storm system that developed that is producing all this rain. i mean, we have rain well south of richmond. we got a few more hours to go before all this begins to train up '95 and get out of here. also notice the yellows, that's heavy rain. some big rains around tyson's corner, as you go up 270, past germantown and towards poolsville in montgomery county. so, the flood watch was canceled. i didn't necessarily agree with that. don't let your guard down. some streets could be flooding. 41 in germantown. 41 in fairfax. 42 in springfield. 42 in college park and 43 in waldorf. so, some good news. windy and wet commute home. but rain ends by midnight. we stay above freezing tonight. that's good. and a touch of spring follows this storm tomorrow. there is light at the end of the tunnel. no, it's not an on coming train, it will be sunshine. mostly cloudy, breezy, rain to

showers. winds will become southwest at 10 to 15. by morning, becoming partly sunny, breezy, chilly. 30s and 40s. by afternoon, pretty nice day for late february. partly cloudy, breezy and milder. highs 55 to 60. so, everything will be a green alert. 57 tomorrow. breezy and chilly. rain or snow shower on thursday. and we welcome march kind of like march, mid 40s, breezy, and a little bit colder. next seven days, temperatures will keep going down. mid 40s on saturday and we are lucky to get to 40 on sunday and monday and back in the upper 40s next tuesday. i have a flake in there, maybe a flurry saturday night. i'd keep your saturday night plans. >> all right. >> all right folks, you heard it from your parents, maybe even your grandparents. we walked both ways to school up hill in the snow. 18-year-old reagan must have taken all that to heart. he was walking ten miles to a job interview when he ran into a restaurant owner. art, we'll let art pick up the story from there. >> excuse me, can you tell me

how far it is? i looked at the ground, it's all ice as i try to determine, it's just about 6, 7 miles away. you aren't getting there any time soon, you'll have to take a bus. he said okay, thank you, sir. he said, i can't afford the bus until i get a job. >> art was so impressed by this guy's dedication, he tracked the teenager down and offered him a job later that day. it will be the second day. >> we want to hear what you think. send your e-mails to mcginty's mail bag. the address is mailbag@wusa9.com.

in the mail bag tonight, gun rights, many of you responding to andrea mccarren's story facing the town where the

law says every home would have a gun. peter argues, there is no such right in the constitution. the phrase doesn't appear in the constitution, but in the decloration of independence. a document never issued if firearms weren't so prevalent. it was that importance that caused the right to bare arms to be included in the bill of rights. that's a fair point. one which with alfred from new carolton would agree. with all the discussion about gun control, a key part of the second amendment seems to get lost. the phrase, the right to bare arms should not be infringed is the brunt of the matter. the word shall, legally means you will do what that word tells you, not open to discussion. check with any attorney you like on that one. okay, alfred, i'll do that as long as you don't mind i bring

up the entire amendment that reads, a well regulated militia to the security of a free state, the right for people to bare arms. how come he didn't bring up that well regulated part? and listen to this from the first amendment, congress shall make no law prohibiting the free exercise thereof or bridging the free democrat of speech. but, anybody argue that free speech rights are absolute? no. there's a reason you can't yell fire in a crowded theater and there's an argument to be made for curtailing the ownership of some kind of guns. now you may not agree with that, but it's not unconstitutional. practice your right to free expression. the address is mailbag@wusa9.com. that is our report. i'll be right back here at 11:00 along with lesli and topper shutt with the latest on that rough weather we're seeing tonight. and don't forget, log on any time to wusa9.com. you have a great evening. we'll talk to you a bit later. bye bye.

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